


Look What the Cat Dragged In

by Roth1900



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Cats, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Jealousy, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roth1900/pseuds/Roth1900
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is doing his sister Harry a favor. He is pet sitting for her while she is in rehab... again. The little cat is supposed to like John best, but jealousy rears its ugly head when the cat befriends Sherlock instead.  I hope you are prepared for this, dear reader, it is an exercise in silliness. Rating applies to mild language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Soup

**Author's Note:**

> No real point here, folks! This is just a silly about John, Sherlock, and a cat named Soup. I enjoyed writing it, and hope you enjoy reading it. :) That is all.

_I’m a fucking doctor for Christ’s sake._

_I’ve been to war; actual, shite War!_

Watson was vexed. His mind supplied insane mantras of strength, intelligence, and determination when he was vexed or nervous or angry. Can’t open the lid on the jam? _Well fuck you, Jam, I’m a goddamned war hero!_ He was certainly _in_ a jam, though the jam itself wasn’t in fact jam. 

The jam was actually a cat named Soup. His sister’s cat to be precise. She had decided to go on a sabbatical in the rehab clinic. _“This is it John, the last time. I swear. I am done with the drink!”_ She needed a place to keep her most recent drunken impulse buy, Soup. 

Soup was a hideous little thing. The cat was all grey, green eyed, skittish, and had a rather lopsided hang to her ears. When it meowed it seemed to hang in the air too long and too loudly. If it was anyone else, in any other circumstance, John would have practically cooed over the little puffy kitten. As it stood, John was not pleased about what was now the newest tenant of 221B Baker Street. 

His sister had begged him to take it. _“Please John, just for a few weeks...”_ John was not heartless, and couldn’t resist his sister when she so ardently needed his help--- or, more to the point, he couldn’t refuse her when she was stepping into a taxi and thrusting a cat carrier into his hands. 

Her taxi was gone well before he had the chance to agree, but there he stood, cat in hand. Well, cat in carrier, carrier in hand, and waved down a taxi of his own. The driver asked him politely where he and his little friend were going. John hesitated at this with one thought in his mind: Sherlock.

Sherlock was going to kill the cat. 

John was no mastermind of deduction, but knew with every fiber of his being that Sherlock and pets were not something that meshed well together. 

“Sir? Where can I take you?”

_How would Sherlock react?_ John thought to himself. He imagined the temper tantrums and endless sulks that would occur when hair contaminated a sample, or the sound of his purring would be distracting while he was thinking. John thought to himself how infuriated Sherlock might be at the cat yowling in response to his violin playing. 

“Sir?” The cabbie pressed.

John frowned a bit, resolution and determination settling into his bunched together browline. There was no way John was going to pay for a cat sitting service. Sherlock was just going to have to grow up and play nice. “221B Baker Street.” 

He was about six blocks away from home when he felt his pocket buzz. Text Message.

_Why on earth are you bringing me a cat? SH_

John was still startled by Sherlock even after almost a year of their communal lifestyle. 

_How could you possibly know that?_

Another buzz.

_Too long to text. Enough to say it was obvious? SH_

John looked down at the cat, thinking that the only feasible explanation had to be that the cat had telepathically warned Sherlock just moments ago, but found that to be silly and a bit rubbish.

When he entered the flat, he found Sherlock absently staring out the window at the now retreating taxi. “You had six stray hairs on your pant leg the last time you visited your sister. You left this morning worried and a less than enthused about your destination-- clear signs of a meeting with someone whom you have strained relations with, common with siblings-- obvious from your leaving the dishes undone after breakfast and the sigh as you left the flat. A quick check with local rehab centers near your sister’s home and an in-patient log including her name with a check-in date for today left only one explanation: she was having you come by to pick up her cat since her latest paramore had left her.”

“And how did you know that she was single again?”

He turned, excitement in his eyes, “Why else would she be off the wagon and needing your help with the cat?”

_I was a Fusilier! I finished med-school with Honors!_ “Obvious, was it?” He asked sharply.

Sherlock quirked one side of his mouth up indulgently. It was all the answer John was going to get.

“His name is Soup, and he will only be here for a few weeks. Try not to kill him.” John put the carrier down at his feet while he spoke, but looked up at Sherlock waiting for a promise of the cat’s nine lives not being in any kind of danger.

“Why would I want to kill it?”

John sighed, “Oh, I don’t know... you do have a mason jar full of toes in our refrigerator.”

“Human toes, John. Unless we get a case in that requires feline toes, I think I can restrain myself.” He sounded a bit put out by the lack of confidence John still harbored about him.

John popped the door open on the crate and waited for the fluffy little bugger to start exploring the apartment. The cat took two steps out and promptly sat down to start licking its own rear, one leg pointed rather provokingly directly at Sherlock as if to say: YOU watch this.

Sherlock had his head quirked to one side, fingers steepled in front of his mouth, and said almost to himself, “Mother never let us keep pets. This should be fascinating.” He squatted down, long legs folding under himself, robe pooled behind him, perched on the balls of his feet. “Fascinating...” 

John huffed, “No, Sherlock, don’t make this an experiment. Just ignore him and he will leave you alone.”

If Sherlock was capable of taking advice from men with lesser intelligence, he might have listened to John, but he was never very good at that. “It’s not really an experiment, just an observational study.” He was mumbling, completely enthralled by the little puff of a cat on the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

The days with Soup went by surprisingly well in John’s opinion. Too well, in fact. There was the occasional spat between Sherlock and his even smaller, even fuzzier best friend. One particular outburst of note was when Soup hopped upon Sherlock’s lab, accidentally bumped a test tube, and rather spitefully pushed a beaker off the table with a glee that could only be described as borderline manic. Sherlock had shouted, noticed that the cat seemed even less concerned than Sherlock when he was being shouted at and instead tried to explain the matter to the cat in a reasonable and rather paternal tone. 

“Now Soup, I understand your need for destruction, I too have a bent in that department at times. We never use it to cause chaos though. Always use your actions for personal gains, never for mindlessness or recklessness. Do you understand?”

John watched, rather shocked as the little cat meowed, bumped Sherlock’s chin with his forehead and hopped off the table. _Never use it for recklessness? What about shooting the wall up when you’re bored Sherlock? Conveniently forgotten? Prat._

At times, Sherlock sat with Soup, one hand lazily petting the purring little creature while the other was tucked behind his head. He seemed peaceful, surely not what John was expecting. The little rogue in the house, he was sure, would only cause mayhem to Sherlock’s exacting expectations of a house mate. It actually caused John a slight pang of jealousy. 

_If I had knocked over a beaker for no reason it would have been a row with potential for bloodshed. ...then again I’m not his pet... I don’t think._ John frowned at that particular line of thought and decided to busy himself in their kitchen. Tea was an instant cure-all for John. Maybe for Sherlock too. 

“I’m making tea, care for a cup?” 

“Quiet. We’re thinking.”

“No, you are thinking. Soup is snoring.”

“He’s purring.”

John rolled his eyes. “Fine, he’s purring, that doesn’t mean he’s thinking.”

“He always purrs when he thinks.”

“Oh my god, do you hear yourself?” Sherlock ignored him. John put his palms out in disgust toward the cozied up friends, “Just don’t start calling yourself ‘Daddy’, there is a line Sherlock, okay?” John left the back-to-thinking couple and returned to the task at hand. Right, tea.

The usual tea cupboard was cleared of food and replaced with a litany of weapons. Fantastic. The next cupboard over was now housing what John could only describe as miscellaneous people pieces in jars of varying liquids. Even better. 

“What is this?”

Sherlock sighed, annoyed. “An experiment.”

“Ahh, well, of course...” John said irritated. “And the guns, riding crops, billy clubs, and knives?”

In an even more annoyed, more clipped, snobby little voice he said, “Those are weapons. You know, beat people, shoot people, poke people with them? Never seen a gun, Captain? Fusilier were you?”

“I’m going out for tea then since it seems you have replaced all the food with psychosis!” He waited for a response for a moment the continued a little more gently, not wanting to goad Sherlock’s temper, “...can I get you anything?”

“No, we aren’t hungry.”

John leaned forward on the back of chair grinding out as calmly as he could manage, “Stop saying ‘we’.” 

Sherlock looked aghast, “Well WE aren’t!”

He huffed, threw on a coat, and left the dynamic duo on the couch, all the while muttering to himself about using Soup _in_ soup if Sherlock got any more attached. 

After the door clicked shut, Sherlock scratched the expanse between Soup’s ears and said spitefully, “Daddy knows when you’re hungry.” 

_I befriended the only unbefriendable person on Earth! I save lives! I am a DOCTOR!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It gets a little smushy here. Fair warning. :)

After a week, John found the two inseparable. Soup would pad across the floor, matching Sherlock’s pacing step for step. He would massage his little feet into Sherlock’s lap as the detective poured over his website where he was currently describing the 103 things you can learn from a person’s shoe print. The little cat even made a cozy home on the pillow of Sherlock’s bed on the rare occasion when he would leave the house. 

It made John sick. He wanted to befriend the cat. He was the natural caregiver of the two. Sherlock was supposed to be despondent and uninterested in silly things like pets. He wasn’t supposed to care for them, spend time with them, give them unending and unconditional love. That was what John did. He was the little boy who fed strays, where Sherlock was more than likely the little boy who ticked off the days until a stray died of starvation. He probably kept a bloody spreadsheet!

Sherlock used to talk to John about his most recent case, now he addressed his beloved Soup. Sherlock used to ask John what he was watching on telly, now he claimed that having the telly on upset Soup’s disposition. Sherlock never grumped at Soup for inane reasons. He never claimed that Soup’s breathing was annoying or distracting or unnecessary (that last one had stung John a bit). 

John was beginning to hate that cat. He even stopped ordering soup at the deli because it had begun to taste sour in his mouth. _Soup._ He thought with a growl. 

A few days later John woke up to the sound of rustling bags and clinking in the kitchen. He threw on an old shirt and pair of flannel pajama bottoms before going down for his morning cuppa. 

“Morning!” Sherlock said brightly. 

“What time is it?” John responded groggily.

“Half past six. Not often I beat the military man out of bed is it?” Sherlock was smiling like a loon. He never smiled after coming back from the shop. Actually John couldn’t recall a time when Sherlock had gone to the shop. He must be manic, brilliant, John thought a bit sullenly. 

“Not too often. Made tea yet?” 

Sherlock turned his back on John. “Actually, I just went to the shop.”

John smiled a lazy morning smile and stretched, “I noticed... and thanks, I thought we might be out. What kind did you pick us up?”

Sherlock turned his head over his shoulder, incredulous. “What kind? Of tea? Why on earth would I have bought tea?”

“Because it is delicious and we drink it and you were at the store. Why wouldn’t you buy tea?”

“Because I didn’t go to the shop for us, John. I bought all this for Soup.” 

John looked at the six or so bags from Tesco Metro. “All of this is for Soup? Are you making soup? Are these ingredients? Or are you actually trying to tell me that you just spent fifty quid on a cat?”

“Fifty-seven, but you are getting better at that.” The little cat hopped up on the counter. It made John’s mouth turn down. _Germs._ “Thirty cans of tuna, one case of bottled water, four jingle bell mice, one kitty cat sweater, a brush, some kitten breath mints, some recreational catnip for our nights in, and,” he shook a little treat canister just out of Soup’s reach, “one can of Frisky’s for my frisky little fellow.” 

John’s mouth moved to speak, but no sound came out. Redirecting Sherlock away from a playful kitten when he was in an excitable mood was simply never going to happen. So he trudged back upstairs, fell on his bed, and dreamed of an apartment with where John was the one who was brought food and trinkets, where there was tea in the cupboard, and no cats on the counter. It was a lovely dream.

Monday next, John found the cat lazily rubbing figure eights between Sherlock’s legs as Sherlock peered through his microscope. “Harry sent word she was going to be picking that up on Friday.” John pointed at Soup with distaste.

Sherlock didn’t stop working as he responded, “No she’s not.”

“Oh, yes she is. She just sent word ‘round.”

“I am sure she did, but she is not taking Soup on Friday, or Saturday, nor any other day.” At this Sherlock looked up. This was not a threat, it was just simply a fact.

John exhaled sharply. John then realized that he shouldn’t have feared Sherlock hating the cat, he should have feared Sherlock loving it. “Sherlock,” he started gently, “that is her cat. Not yours.”

“Soup is not her cat anymore.” 

“Yes it is. If you want a cat, you can go pick one out, but that is her cat.”

“It is SOUP! SOUP! Stop calling it _that_ , his name is SOUP!” He had a devilish gleam in his eyes and red in his cheeks. It didn’t take a lot for Sherlock to get mad. John had seen him get angry numerous times at the drop of a hat, but this was the first time John recalled being the one that Sherlock was mad at.

John put his hands in his hair, frustrated, “Don’t yell at me about a STUPID CAT!” John matched Sherlock’s volume and then some.

Sherlock glowered, “He isn’t stupid and he is not just a cat! He is my friend and I’m not giving him over to the hands of some alcoholic who can’t appreciate him.”

“I thought _**I**_ was your friend.” John’s voiced cracked which only made the statement seem even more desperate and pathetic. As soon as it escaped his mouth, he wished he could take it back. It sounded so weak.

Sherlock sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly not wanting to have this conversation. “John...” he let the word hang there, accusatory and annoyed.

John cleared his throat and started walking up toward his own room, the echo of a limp following him. _I have been shot. I made top marks at Uni._ “Right. Well, I guess I can move in with Harry. She could probably stand a support system when she gets home.”

“John!” This time it sounded more frantic.

John didn’t stop at the sound of his name, he was already half way down the hall. Sherlock, however, had much longer limbs and caught John’s wrist in only three strides. “John!” 

The diminutive man spun around and was immediately angry. “Don’t! You aren’t allowed to!” It wasn’t much of an argument, but Sherlock had some semblance of decorum at times and knew it wasn’t appropriate to point it out at that moment.

“What. is. **wrong** with you?” 

“Aren’t you the detective?” John ripped his arm out of Sherlock’s grip and whispered with rage, “go figure it out for yourself.” 

Sherlock’s lip curled as he spoke, “If I had to deduce, I would say you were jealous of a kitten. I know you though, and by extension I know that you are a logical and reasonable man. Knowing that you are a reasonable man, I also know that I must be wrong about my original deduction. Unless this is your way of telling me you have recently gone in _sane_.” 

John leaned forward, jutting his chin out to better look at the much taller Sherlock. “You know, you’re right. I must be insane. I must have been insane to ever agree to living with someone who is fucked-up beyond the limits of the cosmos!” 

“How am I fucked up?” 

John raised his eyebrows--- _Do you really want me to go there?_

“Okay, too vague. How am I more fucked up than you at this moment? All I said is that I want to keep the cat.”

“And all I asked is if we are still friends!”

“Well, we are!”

“Good!”

“Fine!” Sherlock was confused, but continued shouting, “Why are we fighting!?”

Hysteria swept over John in an instant, and if he could have stopped himself from laughing, he really truly would have. “I have gone insane,” he giggled out, “living with you has finally driven me completely mental, round the twist, crazy, insane.” He sat down heavily on the stair and held his stomach in his hands while he laughed. 

Sherlock couldn’t help himself but get caught up in the moment and laugh right along with John. 

The little blond howled with laughter, his neck thrown completely back. He couldn’t believe he was going to admit to this. “I am... I am jealous of a cat!”

Sherlocked laughed a little harder. 

“I am really jealous. _Really_ jealous.” 

Sherlock sat down next to John, chuckling as he gasped out, “Of what?”

“Of that cat! ...of the attention. _I_ want to be your,” he sobered somewhat, just a few stray giggles escaping as he realized how closely they were sitting on the step, and what his words were sounding like. 

“You want to be my what?” Sherlock said, his laughter also subsiding.

John smiled crookedly. “I’m just not used to sharing you I guess. I mean not sharing you, just your focus, your attention, I mean. That’s all.”

Sherlock squinted his eyes a bit, looking John over. “You were jealous of the cat?”

John blushed slightly. He couldn’t believe what he was saying, but there was no need in denying it now, “A bit, yeah.”

Sherlock nodded slowly, considering, with his bowed lips turned down. “Okay.”

It was the least John had ever heard him speak... other than those times when he said nothing for days at a time. If he opened his mouth to speak, he rarely said only one word. 

“Is it? Okay, I mean? I guess it is a little... strange?”

Sherlock tilted his head toward John in mock seriousness, “Have I just become the normal one?”

John barked out a single laugh. 

He displayed his self depreciating, warm smile, reserved only for special occasions.“Yeah, you’re right, probably not.”

“No, not at all, actually,” John agreed with a smile. 

Sherlock started studying his fingertips, picking at the nail as he spoke. “I’ve been jealous of your other friends, your girlfriends,” he said disdainfully, “your family.” 

John was well aware of how his friends and family were treated by Sherlock. “So what now? No pets? No friends? Just us?”

Sherlock looked over to John, met his eyes. “Yeah. Just us.” He held his gaze a second, watching for something, then stood rather brusquely and went back to his work. John sat on the step a minute longer. 

Just us.


	4. Epilogue

Soup was gathered up by Harry. Sherlock patted the little cat and promised him that he would visit. He handed over the extra tuna, the little toys, and his pillow for the cat to continue sleeping on. It was very big of Sherlock. 

It was a few weeks later when Sherlock suddenly bit out a terse few words to John. “I need to speak with you.”

John looked up from his computer. “Okay. Listening.” 

“I miss snuggling. I miss petting. I miss buying him gifts. I miss his purr.”

John shut the laptop screen the rest of the way and set it down next to him. “Do you want me to ring up Harry. I’m sure she’d appreciate some company and you could visit with him while I visit with her.”

Sherlock shook his head. “No...” he paused, a vulnerability in his voice, “I miss those things here.”

“Well, we can go get a cat Sherlock.”

Sherlock stood up, arms crossed. “You will be jealous.”

“No, it’s fine... I just... wasn’t expecting you to like cats so much.”

“It wasn’t the cat I liked, John. Don’t you see?”

John was perplexed by Sherlock as usual. 

“What I _liked_ is what I _miss_. We agreed John, no one but us. Just us. Your words.”

John shifted in his seat. “So... snuggling and petting and gifts and purring?”

Sherlock stayed where he was. Arms set across his chest. He dipped his head in a single nod. 

John blinked a few times and coughed “Just us? Like you and me, just us?” 

Sherlock nodded again. “You and me.”

John thought for a moment and said, “So we are going to start cuddling?” 

“On the couch.” Sherlock prompted. 

“Ah, yes... well, naturally,” John stammered awkwardly. “The ah... the petting?”

“Your hair. I have found that petting something is soothing and helps me to think.” 

John subconsciously ran his fingers through his hair as he spoke. “I think the gifts are fairly obvious but...” John swallowed, “mind explaining the purring?”

Sherlock looked John up and down then averted his eyes to the floor. “Well, I think if the rest of the activities are mutually fulfilling and acceptable then we could explore that in the bedroom.” Sherlock didn’t have to look at John to know he was blushing, but wanted to see it happen all the same.

Splotches of embarrassment crept up from under his shirt and stained his cheeks pink. There was a stirring happening somewhere deep behind his navel that he hadn’t felt in a long time, he suddenly wished that he still had the computer in his lap. “Ahh, right. Right.” He looked up at his friend. His friend. Possessive. Singular. _His._

_I was a medic in Afghanistan. I was a soldier. I am his friend. ...I am his._ John kept his eyes on Sherlock’s and made a few quick, shallow nods in agreement. “Yeah, just us.”


End file.
